Overwatch's Experimental Card is introducing some rather major changes. Healers have been adjusted and there seem to be patch notes for Experimental Mode? Keep reading for more details!
The Overwatch dev team has been shaking things up in certain areas such as the Overwatch League, and now the focus has shifted to the Experimental Card mode, with some topical changes that have the community talking.
Experimental Card changes
Experimental Card is a mode Blizzard introduced to players for testing purposes only, to see where the mind of Blizzard Entertainment goes when it comes to balancing changes, Hero changes, and much more before they hit the live servers. Well, Overwatch seems to have its head somewhere, as two substantial changes arrived for Overwatch's damage dealers, giving them a buff.
"The next experiment begins! This time we're hoping to get your feedback on some balance updates. We're using the 2-2-2 Role Queue ruleset so that you can get a feel for how these balance changes might affect the live game."
The biggest changes
Let's talk about Junkrat for a moment. The proposed test changes to his primary weapon are small and he can now place concussion mines much faster. Possibly the biggest change is that upon death, his "Total Mayhem" will now spread out bombs in the area, which will explode outward. Yes, outward.
This is quite honestly a huge move from Blizzard as Junkrat is already known for dealing a LOT of damage. We're not so sure that this will make it into the live servers, but if it does, expect a LOT of Junkrat kills. Here are the intended Experimental Card changes for Junkrat:
Frag Launcher
- Projectiles maintain slightly more velocity on a ricochet
Concussion Mine
- Projectile speed increased from 20 to 25
- Ricochet distance off of enemy players greatly reduced
Total Mayhem
- Bomb detonation time reduced from 1 sec to 0.7 sec
- Bombs spread increased by 50%
We're not forgetting Zenyatta here as the proposed changes see a five-percent increase on his Discord Orb – from 25% to 30%. It might seem minimal, but that damage will build up if teams successfully hit the target, making Zenyatta even scarier.
Bastion has seen some adjustment too, notably his sentry fire spread rate has been decreased by 10% and the amount of resources Bastion drains to heal has been increased by 20%. This is one of the changes we hope to see in live servers, as Bastion is always cashing untold mayhem in whatever form.
Someone call the Doctor?
The Experimental Card doesn't just target damage dealers – support Heroes have also seen some drastic changes that are absolutely worth talking about.
First of all, Mercy got a healing increase from what was originally 50 to 55. Again, this seems small but impacts her significantly over time. Moira has also seen some drastic changes to her playstyle with a noticeable reduction to her damage radius, from 5 to 4 meters, compensated by a projectile speed increase from 16 to 20, meaning faster orbs for healing and damage.
What does this all mean?
At the end of the day, these are just experimental variations and should be treated as such until the Overwatch team says otherwise.
If the intended changes do go through, especially for Junkrat and Zenyatta, then prepare for some true mayhem in the support and damage classes. For everything else Overwatch, keep it here, with EarlyGame.
